44 – 40 Win cartridges

So a friend sold ($20 per box) me two boxes of Magtech 44-40 Win cartridges, thinking I could use them in my 44 Mag Herters Cowboy pistol. Not! What firearms will chamber these? Thought if I knew I might look at whats around? Anyone familiar with these?

The two cartridges are separated by over half a century as far as their development and despite their close (but NOT close enough to be interchangeable) dimensions), they share almost nothing in common. They have different parent cases, were designed to accomodate different pressures from different eras of powder development, and the .44-40 was obsolete and almost dead before the .44 Mag was commercially available.

Both Winchester and Marlin chambered lever-action rifles for the .44-40. I am not aware of any handguns being chambered in .44-40 but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one at one time.

Grouse

Mostly OLD lever rifles were chambered for this caliber. A few revolvers, again very old, were also chambered for it. At $20.00/box of fifty you got a deal. Take them to a gun shop or two and try to sell them. And keep those boxes in good shape!

Thanks, it looks pretty impressive.

When I was a kid we had a neighbor who hunted a lot and he had a pair of Winchester Lever-actions that were chambered for the 44-40. Beautiful old guns. His house was full of mounts from white-tails and mulies, all of which fell to those two guns, according to him. He had at least one pistol chambered in 44-40 too. As I got close to being a teen he took me to the gun range to shoot those rifles. I thought those pudgy shells looked like small cannon rounds but they didn’t offer much recoil. I grew up calling them glamor guns but I’m pretty sure they were effective given the era.

He had a rifle chambered in 38-40 too. The two cartridges standing side by side are almost identical only the 44 has more mass.

When I purchased my Marlin Lever action in 375 Winchester I believe that 44-40 was one of the available options it came in. My guess is the Ammo for the 44-40 is about as hard to find and expensive as my 375 Winchester. After a lot of searching I found 4 boxes of Ammo for it about 10 years ago. If I remember correctly those 4 boxes of Ammo cost me close to 200.00 with the shipping cost added in. needless to say I don’t shoot it much anymore. It was a great Gun for Bear Hunting. I shot a fair amount of deer with it as well. It was fairly accurate out to about 100 or so yards. lots of drop after that.

fishthumper wrote:

If I remember correctly those 4 boxes of Ammo cost me close to 200.00 with the shipping cost added in. needless to say I don’t shoot it much anymore. It was a great Gun for Bear Hunting. I shot a fair amount of deer with it as well. It was fairly accurate out to about 100 or so yards. lots of drop after that.

This is great justification for getting into reloading. Or buy a set of dies for someone you know who reloads.

I think a lot of hunters believe that reloading is complicated, difficult, and many buy into the myth that it is somehow “dangerous”. Nothing could be further from the truth, it is neither complicated nor dangerous. The basic process is easy to learn and with the starter kits available these days, you can get a very nice setup for only a few hundred dollars and off you go.

I am using reloading equipment that is a mix of stuff my father bought in the 1960s and more “modern” stuff I bought used in the 1980s-90s. A basic single stage press will last forever and you can (and I do) easily load hundreds of rounds per year with only a few evenings of effort.

I hope you saved all your spent brass, or at least as many as possible.

I have a soft spot for old, obsolete cartridges and in this day of rampant magnumitius and LRD (long-range disease), I love to see people using these old rifles.

Grouse

I’ve often thought about getting into reloading just because of this cartridge. I looked into it many years ago and just did not think the cost of the initial setup would be worth it for the # of rounds that I expected to shoot each year. The 375 win. Is not the type of gun I’d want to just take to the range to shoot for pleasure. It kicks like a mule and isn’t the most accurate round out beyond 100 yards. I figured the most I’d probably shoot each year would be 5-6 rounds. A few to verify it’s still sighted in and maybe a few more for the hunting season. At the time I figured 2-3 boxes of ammo would last me the rest of my hunting life. I should have been saving the brass all these years. These days the brass is worth almost the same as loaded ammo

The beauty of reloading is that those hard kicking cartridges can be loaded down to help tame the recoil while still offering reliably accurate, often substantially MORE accurate, still hard hitting but less expensive ammunition.

My .458 Winnie Mag was able to bounce my 250 pounds around pretty good shooting factory ammo with 500 grain bullets. I reloaded mid-300 something grain bullets with a reduced powder charge that offered groups at 100 yards that were slightly over an inch/5 shots and still had the energy and punch to take any North American bear or moose. Reloading doesn’t have to mean you’re loading a cartridge for a beast and making it a bigger beast. Reloading is finding loads that don’t kill you before the bullet gets to the game for less money and body aches.

I posted a longer post but for what ever reason it didnt work.

1873-1877 – In Winchester’s 1875 catalog the first 44 WCF cartridges appeared but were not labeled as “44 W.C.F”. Winchester stated, “The effect of this change [from 44 Henry to the 44-40] is to increase the initial velocity of the arm from about 1,125 f.p.s. to 1,325 feet per second.” During the Indian Wars, the Indians would proved how valuable the Lever-actions would become!! The Winchester black powder cartridge boxes had green labels.

The 44-40 started off life as the 44/100 but soon changed to 44 W.C.F. (Winchester Center Fire). By 1894, UMC (Union Metalic Cartridge Company) added the -40 designation for Marlin. By 1900, all manufactures called it the 44-40.

During the smokeless powder craze, by 1930 the 44-40 was loaded up to 2,000fps, used in the stronger action rifles, that produced 33,000cup. More modist factory loads by Winchester produced 1,600fps and produced 22,000cup. These were Winchester’s “High Velocity” loads. The Winchester Smokeless powder cartridge boxes had Red labels. Winchester’s High Velocity load boxes had Yellow labels.

Properly loaded handloads can result in 4″ groups at 100 yards in weak action rifles and can hit golf balls at 265 yards in the stronger action rifles.

“Lost” information from the 1800’s and early 1900’s has resurfaced with the advent of the “Information Highway” and have proved that the 44-40 as we now it today is soooo under rated.

Before handloading for this great cartridge, the hand loader must understand several things.

First;

1. Understand that a true 44-40 bullet has a diameter of .4255 – .427
2. Understand that older original pre-1900 rifles had bores as small as .424 and should not use bullets with diameters greater than .427…especially with loads that produce higher than modern SAAMI max pressures of 13,000cup/11,000psi (2015 SAAMI Standards)
3. Understand that most modern 44-40 firearms use 44 special/44 Magnum barrels with larger .429/.430 bores acceptable for using 44 Special and Magnum bullets with diameters of .429/.430 but “could” retain the smaller 44-40 case mouth dimensions making chambering difficult for thicker Remington brass using .429+ diameter bullets.
4. Understand what a true 44-40 bullet “Profile” looks like. Certain so called 44-40 bullets and/or the use of some 44 Special and 44 Magnum profile bullets may be “too wide” just forward of the case mouth and touch the driving bands of the bore when chambered. This, along with simply adjusting the AOL, can increase chamber pressures and could cause problems in older “weaker” firearms.

Second;

1. Understand the difference between “Group I and Group II” rifles mentioned in Lyman’s 49th handloading manual
2. Understand that the “thin” cylinder chamber walls in a revolver are certainly weaker than the thicker rifle barrel chambers and weaker than the “Action” on a Winchester 73′

Huge delay, sorry

Massive double post

If interested, take a look at this website, there is tons of information.

https://sites.google.com/view/44winchester

Thanks Bryan, I’m almost ready to find a rifle that I could use this ammo in. Any suggestions?

Buzz wrote:

Thanks Bryan, I’m almost ready to find a rifle that I could use this ammo in. Any suggestions?

Any store bought 44-40 ammunition can be used in any arm chambered for it.

Revolvers: Colt, Uberti, Ruger. All good guns but the prices are up and down. I prefer Uberti

Rifle: Winchester’s new 73′, Uberti Winchester 73′, Marlin 1894CB, Rossi Winchester 92′

There are always lemons with everything we buy but all of the above are typically great manufactures but Uberti sells parts and many others do not and is why I choose Uberti products. There are many “importers” of Uberti firearms like Taylors, Cimmaron, Stoeger, Cabelas etc.